ROY KENT: It's time to take aim at the billboard litter

During the summer between my seventh and eighth grades of school, my father was transferred from Nuremberg, Germany, to Fort Hood, Texas.

It was not a big deal. As a military family, we moved somewhat frequently. It was not difficult. It was life. People would ask: Isn't it hard moving every three or four years? My reply was always: Isn't it hard to live in one place your entire life? It is all about what you're used to.

Anyway, when we were traveling from Germany to Texas, we landed in South Carolina. One thing I was excited to see were all those billboards. I hadn't seen one for years and thought about what I could see on the side of the roads.

In Germany, all we could see - besides general road signs and whatnot - were fields and trees. There were lots and lots of trees. No billboards anywhere.

As a 13-year-old kid, I marveled at all the billboards advertising roadside stops like hotels and restaurants. That was pretty much it. In the darkness, I got my fill of billboards. It was something new. It got old fast.

Now I miss the night sky. It is completely washed out by light pollution. Anyone who has driven from Roswell, N.M., to Plains, Texas, in the middle of the night can tell you how incredible the nighttime sky can be.

If you have lived your entire life in Houston, you have no idea how beautiful the sky can be at night.

Every student in Texas should have learned the song "Deep in the Heart of Texas." Do you remember the opening lyric?

"The stars at night

"Are big and bright

"Deep in the heart of Texas"

That is true but only if you don't live in one of the big cities. Now possibly thanks to the Texas Department of Transportation it is only going to get worse.

Current billboards have a height limit of 42 feet, roughly the height of a four-story building. If the billboard industry has its way, the height limit will be more than 80 feet. Just what Texas needs: more obnoxious billboards further creating a blight on the landscape.

If we cannot see the stars at night shining big and bright, they are about to totally disappear.

All this came about thanks to the Texas Legislature in Senate Bill 312. In order to keep the Texas Department of Transportation up and running, an amendment to that "must-pass" bill set the maximum height of a billboard at 85 feet. Of course, that is just the main sign. Extensions to a billboard can go above that limit.

Thanks to efforts of groups like Scenic Houston, the number of billboards in Houston proper have been limited. The erection of new billboards has been stopped by actions of the city of Houston. In the mid 1980s, there were more than 15,000 billboards in the city, according to Scenic Houston. Latest figures have the number down to around 1,500.

Rather than allow for the height of billboards to reach further into out Texas sky, inundating us with pop-up advertising from the pre-Internet age, how about taking more of them down? Don't even get me started on digital billboards.

There are enough distracted drivers on the roads already. Throw in advertising along the sides of highways and byways, it makes the daily gauntlet even that much worse.

Hopefully, some smarter heads will prevail and cut down the size and number of billboards across the state.